Richard J. August: Think of the lives saved

Tuesday

Sep 2, 2014 at 11:23 AM

Tim Norton falls back on the liberal standby of appealing to emotions and urges me to “Think of the victims” (letter, Aug. 31) in rebuking me for challenging his assertion in an earlier letter that the Founding Fathers could not possibly have intende

Tim Norton falls back on the liberal standby of appealing to emotions and urges me to “Think of the victims” (letter, Aug. 31) in rebuking me for challenging his assertion in an earlier letter that the Founding Fathers could not possibly have intended that individual citizens have a right to own and carry firearms.

One can infer that Mr. Norton subscribes to the far-left notion that to end “violent gun deaths” no one in 21st century America — especially in Rhode Island — needs to own a firearm.

Mr. Norton employs another tactic of the anti-gun lobby by taking parts of Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in the milestone Heller case out of context.

Scalia did indeed write that “the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” Few of us Second Amendment supporters believe that it is.

Scalia also wrote, “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” By saying that exceptions to the right to own and carry a firearm can be lawful, the court clearly implied that the individual right exists.

In a published study by Northwestern University (not exactly a hotbed of conservatism), Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz found on average about 2.5 million cases annually where lives were saved and crimes stopped by law-abiding citizens with a firearm. I urge Mr. Norton to consider those whose lives were saved.